Tag art challenge

I realize that this should have been posted last week, and we should have moved on further by now, but I ended up spending most of last week tired and internalizing rather than reading. I finished The Everyday Work of Art and Drawing On the Right Side of the Brain yesterday, and went to the library to find more books. They didn’t have any of the other books I was looking for, so I decided to immerse myself in fairy tales and explore fantasy more.
I was surprised at how well The Everyday Work of Art and Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain went together. Admittedly, the ideas in the Everyday Work of Art were more helpful to me as I found new ways of looking at the world, and in a way better understanding my process. I’m going to do a longer post on this in the future, but let me just say that neither of these books are written solely for “artists” in fact, they’re actually probably better suited for people who don’t think of themselves as artists. Because both of them explain differences in thinking, and allowing yourself to be creative and explore even if you don’t think you are or could ever be.
I’ve found, that when I applied the ideas in real life – even in mundane ways (like noticing the shape of tree branches, or the way the water flows in the sink, or the different feel you get when you hear something without seeing it, and then seeing it) I’ve enjoyed the day much more. Just by being able to take time out to allow myself to experience and immerse myself in the life around me (even if it’s boring, or just watching a movie).
So, I went to the library with the intention of bringing home some art theory or technique books and didn’t really find anything that called me, so I went to the Young Adult section and picked out three books that encompass worlds I want to explore – The Night Fairy, The Last Unicorn, and Faerie Wars. The first two were recommended to my be friends, and the last I saw at a bookstore and was practically calling me, so when I found it at the library I decided it was probably calling me for a reason….

Spatial Awareness

The other thing I did yesterday was switch the room our bedroom was in and move the studio into it. It took a long time, but I actually like it better, and now the studio is sort of becoming taken over with film equipment, or it will be before the day is over. I slept so much better in the other room. I think having only *one* window facing West as opposed to two facing North and East might have something to do with it. So in trying to keep the studio as empty as possible, I moved the furniture that previously occupied it into other places – the bookshelf looks nice in the hall, and my art supply chest is holding the fat-tv in our bedroom (instead of the night stand, yay!) – so I guess actually, that didn’t really move. I also had the clever idea of putting the dresser in one half of the closet, and hanging the clothes and housing the clean laundry basket on the other side – it looks really cool, and surprisingly Alex likes it too. I cleaned out/re-organized the closet in the living-room also, and now all that’s left is to recycle the boxes I was using as nightstands and do something with our old iMac box.
Maybe it’s weird, but I do a lot of creative thinking when I’m trying to re-arrange stuff. I like the challenge of figuring out the best place to put things and which way it would look better. I put a lot of thought into it, and end up using the spatial-awareness part of my (right) brain which is sort of fun for me. I also don’t re-arrange extensively on a regular basis, so when I do it’s actually enjoyable. Honestly, the last month or two have been the most that I’ve re-arranged since we moved into our apartment over two years ago. I like it better this way.

Etsy News

Yesterday I started a Thing-A-Week deal for my shop. I’m listing or featuring one item a week for a discounted price with free (or very cheap for international) shipping. Alex actually came up with the idea and I thought it was sort of brilliant and would be fun to try. So I decided I’d start off with my watercolors that I’ve been working on and listed the portrait of The Doctor I made last month. The deal only lasts a week (and then there’s a different one) so check it out.
Also, I sold my Sexy Tardis ACEO to someone in *Australia*, which was very cool. I’ve never shipped internationally before. I had two Forever stamps and one ten-cent stamp.

I must admit I was really happy to moving on to the 19th century today. Art seemed to be getting stronger and more independent – romanticism challenging neo-classicism, realism challenging the academics, impressionism challenging conventional thinking and *gasp* introducing plien-air – Artists started finding their own independent voices, and following their own vision as opposed to the church, the state, or the rich people.
YAY!
Obviously though, some still used their art (and allowed their art to be used) as pieces for political or religious statements – like Orientalism portraying the East as real yet based the painted reality on false information serving to justify imperialism.
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I had an epiphany this morning while I was still laying in bed about right-verses-left brain function. When I drive, I *have* to have music on or someone talking to me. I need some form of verbal feedback in order to concentrate on my driving. I never knew why, just that if I drove in silence my brain would start talking to myself and critiquing my driving skills (did you go too fast on that curve? are you swerving?! Did you check to make sure you’re still in your lane?) and if I can’t shut that off I get stressed. I realized this morning as I was thinking about some things that I learned from Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain that I must use the right (non-verbal, spacial awareness, creative) side of my brain when I drive which in turn can send the left (verbal, logical, thinking) side into a frenzy if I don’t do something to keep it down.
The left half of my brain has had total dominance for years as I pretty much ignored my emotions and creativity until relatively recently. So I suppose I shouldn’t be too surprised that I have a hard time communicating my emotions, nor that I seem to have trouble connecting the two sides of myself. Although, amazingly, the creative exercises in the book do seem to help with that.

I’m not usually one for rearranging or reorganizing often, lately, my office has been the exception to the rule. I’ve been on a quest to create a calm fantastical space for myself to create in, and for guests to sleep in. I’ve found that with the addition of new furniture (bookshelf, futon, chest) comes new inspiration – also, determination to find places for things that were otherwise living in boxes on the floor. Today, I finally was able to get rid of *all* the boxes I was using and found places for everything, and also, rearranged.

I’ve always thought having furniture at angles was an interesting thing to do, so I decided to do that with my bookshelf and I really like it. My office feels more open this way too, because there’s a little more wall space (less boxes and everything against it).

I also finished my fairy house (except for dreaming about adding windows and lights) painted the outside with vines and set up the interior. It looks really good.

So today was my apartment-decorating spree. I rediscovered Apartment Therapy and that might have inspired me a little.

Painting Challenge

I’m thinking about doing something to challenge myself and my way of painting. I don’t know too much about all the styles, but I think what I’m going to start soon, is reading about all the styles/movements and spending a week exploring those myself. So maybe I’ll be reading about impressionism one week, and spending that week working in that style, and doing abstract art the next week and so on. I can find which styles speak to me, and learn about the differences between them and hopefully, possibly, improve my skill while doing it. Hopefully I’ll have enough energy to be starting that on Monday.

Food

Alex brought me fresh strawberries from the health food store today, so I’ve been munching on those, he also picked up pineapple for breakfast tomorrow. I love fruit! If (and this is a big if) I have energy tomorrow, I might make shepherds pie again…